


war no more

by brietopia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 22:16:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12177576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brietopia/pseuds/brietopia
Summary: Caldis and Theron struggle to reconnect in the wake of the events on Iokath.





	war no more

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is me coming to terms with... everything SWTOR has thrown at us.
> 
> Title is from [this wonderful gospel song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WObZMtxmjM4) by Nat King Cole, which has been my mantra for Callie and Theron since 5.2 came out. Please take care of yourselves—this is a heavy fic that features frank discussions of trauma (particularly as it relates to Vitiate), mental illness, and depression, as well as semi-graphic depictions of violence.
> 
> I hope u enjoy. xo

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Caldis doesn’t flinch. She knew he was coming; something inside her had recognized him, his Force signature, the familiarity of its contours. But she does look up from her datapad, currently displaying a feed of recent news articles.

The headlines are sensational. Pure propaganda. But that doesn’t stop her from skimming them anyway. Most of them are about Iokath. The Empire, Acina’s death, the superweapon. Some even mention Theron: _Disavowed SIS agent reunites with father, Republic hero Jace Malcom_ —

She frowns. Sweeps a finger across the screen, and the article disappears, banished to the furthest corners of the HoloNet.

She looks up, finds his face, and it’s just as haggard as she’d expected it to be. He’s tired. They both are, but it’s clearly been harder on him. Part of it’s Malcolm, she knows, and Iokath, and the sudden, unexpected hostilities with the Empire. But—and this, she thinks, is the worst part—most of it’s the traitor. She’d refused to monitor her people, but that hadn’t kept him and Lana from running their own personal investigations. As far as she knows, they’re keeping tabs on each other. Which would be amusing, really, if it weren’t so awful.

She tries to smile, and it’s painful—her cheeks ache with the forcefulness of it, like her body’s trying to contort itself into some foreign shape, one it barely remembers.

“I thought you were gonna get some sleep.”

“I tried,” says Theron, shrugging a shoulder. “Waste of my time.”

She sighs. But she still makes room for him, scooting to one side, patting the ground beside her. “Did you try the sleeping pills I gave you?”

He doesn’t say anything. Just settles down next to her, legs stretched out—lanky, lean. She follows them with her eyes, tries to imagine what it would be like to follow them into eternity. Follow _him_ into eternity. But, really, isn’t that what she’s doing? Only eternity is war, and instead of following his legs, she’s following his heart. _The Republic’s a safer bet—_

She shakes her head. Maybe _she_ should give the sleeping pills a try.

Their shoulders touch briefly. An accident: he’s just trying to get comfortable, which is a near-impossibility on Iokath, with all its sharp angles, hard surfaces. He hasn’t sought her willingly, like this, for as long as she can remember. And whenever she reaches out—twines their fingers together, presses a kiss to his knuckles—there is coldness, a near-impenetrable wall, like he has cut himself off from her, the Force, everything.

Still, she butts up against it, against that wall—seeking his warmth, though Iokath seems to have drained them both. And, after a moment, he lifts an arm, curling it around her shoulders. Tucked into his side, now, she turns her head, pressing her face against his shoulder. He is solid beneath her. Unmoving, and on a world that is permanently in motion—even the ground seems to shift, a quake beneath her feet, a quiet rippling—it— _he_ —feels suddenly, urgently precious.

He moves. Nuzzles the top of her head, and something passes between them. A sigh, maybe. A silent breath.

“Tired?”

She shakes her head.

“Liar.”

“Jedi don’t lie,” she reminds him, only she’s speaking into his shoulder, so it probably comes out like _schmeshi shon’t shy_.

“But you’re not really a Jedi anymore, are you?”

A year ago, she might’ve denied it. Six months ago, even, she might’ve denied it. But being here, on Iokath, surrounded by the remnants of the Jedi Order—sentinels, with their double blades; sages, with their long, flowing robes—the only thing that comes to mind is something akin to pity. So she shrugs, and Theron laughs, and for a moment it’s almost like they’re on Odessen again.

She thinks, not for the first time, how very tired she is of war.

“Malcolm’s optimistic,” he says. And, if they were anywhere but here—legs swinging over the abyss, dark and deep, almost yawning; every once in a while, their feet knock together, and there’s a moment of closeness as their legs tangle—she’d ask him about his voice, how his voice betrays him. It’s not just _Malcolm_. It’s Mal _colm_. _Mal_ colm. Disjointed syllables, hurriedly pasted together. The name stutters, or he stumbles over the name, and if Iokath weren’t so cruel, he might just tell her why. But neither of them can afford softness in a place like this. Neither of them can afford to flash their bellies—that pink, tender flesh. “He seems to think we’re gaining ground.”

“Of course he does.”

Theron laughs again. Or, at the very least, exhales, with the resulting sound a vague resemblance. He noses her temple, dropping a kiss there, light and feathery. “Glad to see you hate my dad as much as I do.”

“I don’t _hate_ him.” A lie. She definitely, without a doubt, unequivocally hates the man. Though she’s probably a bit biased. “I just—”

“Can’t stand him?”

“I wouldn’t say—”

“Would like to see him dead?”

“ _Theron_.”

“Okay,” he relents. “That was a bit too far. But you can’t tell me you like the guy.”

“I never said I did.” Which is true. In a dream she did, but it was really more of a nightmare, the kind she can’t make sense of. Theron died in it. She remembers that much. “I’m just… trying to make things work.”

There’s a lot she’s not saying, a lot he’ll eventually tease apart. It’s not just the Alliance she’s thinking of, its future—if there even is a future; at this point she’s not sure—with the Republic. It’s them. Her and Theron. And of course Theron’s father plays a role in that, in Caldis-and-Theron, Theron-and-Caldis. Of course he does. It’s only logical. And, really, only fair—Theron did brave one of her mother’s parties for her, even though he was technically just the Commander’s attaché. Her guard and protector.

At least, that’s what she told her mother.

( _Theron, meet my mom. Mom, meet—_

 _Theron Shan!_ She said it like that, too—bumbling, red-cheeked. Painfully eager. _The two of you are all over the holo._

 _Really?_ She remembers Theron’s glance, brows curving, mouth curving too. Amusement. It’d annoyed her. _I mean, that makes sense. He’s an integral part of my team._

 _Integral_ , Theron echoed, nodding. _Very._

She wasn’t able to elbow him, because of… propriety, apparently, or something. So she sent a gust of Force his way, nipping the hair at the nape of his neck. _Yes. And we can’t forget you’re my Spymaster—_

 _Your Spymaster?_ He quirked a brow. _So I’m yours now?_

_I didn’t mean it like—_

_We’re dating_ , he said, then, turning to her mother. _Your daughter and I. She said we shouldn’t tell you, but I figured you deserved to know._

She very suddenly had no qualms about elbowing him. It was almost like magic.)

His eyes are on her. She can feel it, can feel the weight of them, the… burn. “For the Republic?” he asks quietly. “Or for me?”

“Can’t it be both?”

He sighs. Suddenly it feels like they’re apart again, like he never even drew her into his side. Everything they’ve been through—everything they’ve survived, everything they’ve overcome—and this is what they get? “We’ve been over this, Callie.”

“No,” she says. “You’ve talked a lot about how _you_ feel. You don’t want special treatment, you’re worried people will start to think I have a bias towards the Republic—which, by the way, is irrelevant now, because I very clearly _do_ —you think I should try and be more objective.” She doesn’t mean to sound bitter. She doesn’t. But of course it comes out that way, all dark and oozing. “But that doesn’t mean we’ve ‘discussed’ it, because a discussion means we both get to explain our side of things, and you’ve barely let me get a word in edgewise.”

She’s exaggerating. Slightly. But the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that she’s… not, really. Maybe he doesn’t mean to drown her out, but he does, with the smallest, most innocuous of things.

Still, the guilt is gnawing. Another wound she has to tend—another vacuum to shove Force energy into, gold and gauzy. Doesn’t she have enough, she wonders. Hasn’t the Galaxy given her enough to remember it by?

“I’m sorry,” she says finally. “That was unfair. Of me. I’m stressed and tired and there’s this, like, pain in my right calf that won’t go away, but you’re probably just as…”

He hasn’t pulled away, which is good. But he’s taut against her—vibrating, almost, like the blade of her lightsaber. “Callie.”

“I don’t want to argue.” Which is unfair. Again. They haven’t been arguing much at all lately. Mostly they just… sit; collapse into bed at night, or whatever passes for night here, this strange otherworld of string and code. At least that remains, the only intimacy they managed to take with them when leaving Odessen.

“I don’t want to argue either,” says Theron slowly, brows drawing together.

“Then let’s just sit here,” she says, blowing out a breath, “and enjoy the view.”

Only there is no view. If it was just the Alliance here, she might be able to take some sort of pleasure in exploring this place. But with the others here— _the others_ , she thinks, and has to wonder when the Republic grew apart from her, when she lost the urge to call it her own—the whole planet is a battlefield. She can’t see it from where she’s sitting, but she can always imagine it. It’s one of the easiest memories to return to, probably due to its familiarity, how intricately it’s tied with who she is now.

She’s tired of fighting. Setting out every day—sometimes with troopers, sometimes with Jedi; everyone knows her here, so there’s no chance of anonymity, of slinking past the barricades with T7 at her side—lightsaber in hand. It almost feels like before, when the Empire was the enemy. Only now, whenever she lobs a head off, the body wears Lana’s face. Vette’s. She can’t help but wonder if she’ll ever end up killing one of her own damn friends.

“I don’t want you to put me first,” Theron says, then, the words a sudden burst. “That’s all.”

She sighs. He makes it sound so… simple, like she can somehow do away with the part of her that’d die for him. Like she can somehow will away that deep-seated instinct. (It occurs to her, then, that perhaps she’s still the same person, that somewhere inside her is a Jedi’s bleeding heart. She still protects, defends, only now she’s protecting Theron, which is to say she has left the Republic to its own devices.) And maybe it _is_ that easy. Maybe she _is_ unnecessarily complicating things.

But that’s the issue, isn’t it? She can’t _not_ complicate things. Which is probably a failing on her part—once a Jedi, bastion of light, now a kind of shadowed creature. She remembers, dimly, the Code, how even Orgus had warned against love, obsession, the thing she feels for Theron. But how can she remain impartial, she wonders, and objective, when the Galaxy has taken everything else from her, even Rhyss and Kira.

Hasn’t she done enough? Hasn’t she earned this brief selfishness?

“I don’t want to either,” she says finally. If only she had a choice. If only the Force would grant her grace, at least in this. “But I don’t know how.”

How to stop loving him. How to stop the fear, how to stop it from eating her alive—sometimes she sees his dead body, transposed atop his real, fleshy thing, head askew, and it takes her days to return to herself. Days for her hands to quiet and still.

Does he have visions too? Nightmares? Or is he better at this—better at love, at tempering it; better, at least, than her.

He pulls away, just enough to look at her. She swallows, pins her gaze to something in the distance: one of the towers they felled yesterday, a crushed spire of glittering glass. She hates it when he does this, when the silence takes them both. She never knows what to do, where to put her hands.

“Callie,” he says, barely a murmur.

Her vision breaks, and suddenly she’s seeing them from above: touching, yet somehow afraid to touch, afraid to lean too heavily on each other. It must be Iokath, the fragility surrounding them. One wrong move and they’ll both shatter, which is a specific kind of violence—strange to her, unfamiliar.

“Callie,” he says again, touching her cheek, her jaw, her chin. “Look at me.”

“What do you want me to say?” _I’m sorry_ , or _this is what love has made of me_. Maybe she should regret it, or grieve what she once was. But how can she, when all she ever dreams of is his hand in hers, how small the stars look from here. “That I chose the Republic for you? That I thought of you when I said it, when I turned Acina away?”

She sees her, too. Sometimes her head—her black, burnt body, decapitated—but still always Acina, still always dead. And the worst part?

Acina never blames her, not even in her dreams.

( _This is what I died for?_ Acina asks. They’re somewhere on Iokath. Bodies pile up around them, faces smeared and smoldering. _War?_

She never knows how to answer that question. At one point she would’ve said _freedom_ or _democracy_ , _the Light Side of the Force_ , but none of that seems applicable now. She stopped fighting for ideals a long time ago.

_Answer me._

She lifts her shoulders. A noncommittal shrug. _I don’t know._

_Peace? Technological superiority? Equality? Have you been to Coruscant lately, the Old Galactic Market? Black Sun territory? It’s worse than you remember. Poverty everywhere. Hunger. And what about Nar Shaddaa? Do you fight for your patients? The neutrality of the Hutts?_

She never knows what to say. And isn’t that an answer in itself?

 _For lov_ e? Acina is always smiling in Caldis’ dreams, eyes dead, voice disembodied. Her lips part, and out falls a tooth—chipped at the edge, and black as char.

 _For Theron._ Which is perhaps the same thing.

Silence. Something blazes in the distance, red against her pale skin. The heat is unbearable.

 _I always knew there was darkness in you_ , says Acina finally _. Only a Sith would doom the Galaxy over for something as selfish as love._ )

“I would’ve went with the Republic anyway,” she continues, words pouring from her now. “What is it they always say? ‘Better the devil you know’?”

She’s being unfair. The Republic isn’t evil, not like—

Not like the Empire. But _is_ the Empire evil? Or just misguided? Lost, like her. She thinks of Lana, how she once believed the blonde to be similarly corrupt. And yet—with Kira gone, Rhyss missing, Vette a flighty thing, sometimes Lana is the only friend she has. So how can the Empire be evil, Caldis wonders, when it gave Lana the sharpness and practicality she’s come to rely on. How can the Empire be evil when so many of her friends, the people she loves, would’ve died for Vitiate’s sake.

Satele and Marr—they made it sound… easy. A new path, one of balance, equal parts Dark and Light. But now she’s here, second-guessing everything, even the quiet hitching of her breaths. She doesn’t miss the Order, the Code, but she does miss the certainty of it, how everything she did back then somehow made sense.

Nothing makes sense these days. Not even his hand on her thigh, fingers curled just so, thumbing the fabric of her trousers. She feels vaguely like she’s stumbling through the dark, tripping over bodies, her own depthless shadow.

“I did it for you,” she says finally, voice small. “And that probably makes me an awful human being, and an… _awful_ Jedi, but we both know I’m not the latter anymore, and who the hell knows if I’m even human at this point.” She thinks of Vitiate, how long she’d been the vessel of a god. Shouldn’t that have changed her? Shouldn’t that have made her into something else? “Is that what you want me to say? Because it’s true. Every word.”

She blinks back tears. Reaches up, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. She’s dreamt this before. Sometimes she’ll wake up at the crux of it all—he says something about _responsibility_ , how it’s her _responsibility_ as _commander_ to _put others first_ ; she tells him _no_ , that she _never asked for this_ , and it’s then she wakes up, a quivering mess in Theron’s bed. But sometimes the dream warps, and Theron dies by her hand, her palms slick with his blood.

 _I’m sorry_ , she says in those dreams. _I’m sorry. I didn’t ask for this._ But that’s just it. She can’t think of a single thing in all her life that she’s asked for, except for maybe Theron’s love, and even that’s debatable. She doesn’t remember begging.

He doesn’t say anything. Just looks at her, brow furrowed. And that—that, she thinks, is the worst part. Even her sins are on display now.

She looks down at her hands. Blinks again, and—

Electrocuffs. The same kind Vitiate used, jutting against the bone of her wrists, so she knows it’s a hallucination. But that doesn’t stop a breath from leaving her, soft, strained. A veritable wheeze. “Theron.”

He lifts his head.

“Tell me there’s not…”

She can’t pull her eyes from her lap—if she closes her eyes, focuses, she swears she hears the crackle of electricity—but she knows it’s there, the concern in his eyes. “What is it this time?”

He’s always so patient with her. She’s not sure she deserves it, not after everything—

“Callie.” His palm against her cheek, thumb against her lower lip. “Hey.” What was it Kira used to say? _Don’t go there. Stay with me._ “Talk to me.”

She can barely get the word out. “Electrocuffs.”

“They’re not real.”

She knows that. “But—”

“They’re not real.” _Don’t go there._ “You know they’re not real.”

She knows that. “It hurts.” The pain’s misshapen, a grotesque thing, but she can still feel her flesh split open. A thousand tiny knives, slicing away at her; a thousand tiny cuts, red and raised.

“I know.” There’s a moment of silence. And then he pulls her into him—an arm around her waist, chin propped atop her head. It’s the closest they’ve been in… _stars_ , she doesn’t know. How long have they been on Iokath? When was the last time she spotted an unobstructed patch of sky? “I know,” he says again, dropping a kiss to her hair.

The hallucinations aren’t new. T7 was the first to witness it—Caldis a writhing mass, her screams bouncing off durasteel walls. _Jedi = unwell // T7 = get help?_ Then it was Doc, his hand curled against her elbow. _Callie. You alright?_ And then, finally, Kira: the only one who understood, who knew to an extent what it was like. _This is a battle you can’t win, so don’t even try. Just listen to my voice, okay? You’ll get through this._

The weeks after Ziost were the worst—all that ash, clogging her throat, a roughened pebble on the flat of her tongue. T7, powered down at her bedside, in a kind of feigned watchfulness. Doc’s supplies, overrun with tranquilizers. Rusk and Scourge, standing outside her quarters, alternating shifts every few hours. Sometimes Kira slept with her, boots flung halfway across the room, a half-hearted trail of armor and robe. _You’re okay, Callie. Stay with me._ Her guardian angels, every single one.

( _I have decided that life is more interesting with you in it._

Her pulse flutters. A frenzied creature, pitiable, its back against a wall.

 _When I am finished here—when every life on this world has been exhausted—I want you to be alive. To know that I succeeded._ )

Then Vitiate embraced her body, mortal as it was, littered with his own violences. She stopped sleeping. Relied on caf, stims, her own damn stubbornness. When they reached Odessen—Theron, waiting, nervous: _like what you’ve done with the place_ —she couldn’t keep herself awake, couldn’t fight it any longer. Vitiate met her there, the dark of her dreams, and the hallucinations blurred to nightmares.

(The base was new to her, unfamiliar, practically labyrinthine; she’ll spend hours memorizing the blueprints, Lana flitting around her orbit, datapad in hand. But back then it was terrifying. Like Tython was her first few days there.

She stood outside his door for several minutes, heart in her throat. And then, finally, in a small voice, _Theron?_

No response.

 _Theron._ Louder. Verging on desperate.

Footfalls. The door cracked open. _Callie?_ He blinked. Once, twice, looking her up and down—his eyes were bleary. _What—_

 _I’m sorry._ Words tripping over themselves, a blustery howl of air. _I know it’s late and, like, this is weird. Right? This is weird. We only just… I mean, it’s been so long since we saw each other. Well, for you. Not for me. It’s only been, like, a month for me. But that doesn’t make it_ not _weird—_

 _Callie._ The door, creaking on its hinges.

_It’s just that I have nightmares, you know, because of… him, and somehow they’re worse than the hallucinations. Way worse. And Teeseven—he tries to help, but it’s not—_

_Callie._ He cupped her cheek. Pressed the pad of his thumb to her pulse, straining against the skin of her neck. When he smiled, it was a quiet thing. Sleepy.

A pause. _You’re not weirded out?_

_Why would I be?_

A good question. Difficult. She didn’t know how to answer it. _I don’t… know._ A breath left her, suspended between them. After a moment, she turned her head, nuzzling the skin of his palm. _I missed you._ )

They spent hours together, her and Theron. But when he had to leave—citing this and that; _recon, Callie, that’s kind of what I do_ —she wouldn’t sleep for days on end. And always the hallucinations. Sometimes a lightsaber through her gut—Arcann’s, probably, from the looks of the hilt. (He has bad days, too. There’s a strange kind of solidarity in it, how their smiles dovetail, singed around the edges.) Sometimes Kira, eyes glazed over, long dead. Sometimes the chalky air of Ziost, the spiraling corridors of Vitiate’s fortress.

 _Suppose you live long enough to see the war end_ , Orgus once said. But that’s just it. The war never ends. There are different battles, maybe, skirmish after skirmish, but it’s all the same war. One continuous thread, red as the blood on her hands.

 _How will you live?_ Does she have to live? Can’t she just be done?

 _How will you find comfort when your time finally comes?_ Is there even comfort to be had? Or is that a lie too?

She cracks an eye. The electrocuffs are gone, and her breathing… she can’t be sure, but it almost matches Theron’s—that quiet, steady, in-out rasp.

He shifts. Drops another kiss to her head, smoothing a palm over the curve of her back. “You okay?”

What’s she supposed to say to that? “Getting there.”

“Liar.” He pulls back. Drags his fingertips along the line of her jaw, the shell of her ear. It’s a gentle touch, meant to invoke familiarity. “I don’t know if you know this, but you’re a terrible liar. And that’s coming from a spy.”

She can’t help it. She smiles. But it’s worn around the edges, pulled tight near her eyes. “Jedi are taught to… avoid dishonesty.”

He snorts. “Didn’t we just have this conversation?”

“Maybe a variant of it.”

“Or we’re stuck in a time loop.”

“Sounds plausible.”

“I thought so.”

A pause. Her eyes find his, and the smile she gives him is… hesitant. Uncertain. She’s long since given up on stability, or even the appearance of, but that hasn’t stopped her from wanting to somehow reassure him. Of what, she’s not sure.

“Thank you,” she says eventually.

He hums, fingers curling in the hair at her nape. “What for?”

“I’ve been such a wreck lately.” And that’s putting it lightly. “I keep expecting you to… realize what you’ve gotten yourself into, I guess, and bolt.” _What you’ve gotten yourself into_ , but that’s not exactly truthful. He’s been in this for years now. So it’s her she’s afraid of, how everything in her is splintering, the slightest of vibrations tearing at her seams.

“Callie.” He laughs, the sound made of disbelief. He thumbs the skin of her cheek—rosy, but scarred. “I would never do that.”

She knows. “I know.” But the expectation remains, lingering, like the press of his mouth against hers.

“Well, obviously you don’t.” His brow furrows. Fingers curling against her chin, so as to frame her face, lock it in place. When he speaks, his voice is measured, words chosen with care. Like picking through a landslide: all the different parts of her scattered here, there. “I know you think you’re some sort of burden, but it doesn’t feel that way to me. Maybe because of my parents, how my whole life has just been one… disaster after another. But you have to believe me when I say that loving you is—”

A pause. Caldis can’t breathe.

“Loving you is easy,” he says finally. His cheeks, she notices, are endearingly pink. “You know that spycraft pretty much precludes any kind of lasting… relationship. And if I were with any other person, I’d have to try a lot harder than I am. But you make it easy. You—” He frowns. Huffs a breath, frustrated. “What I’m trying to say is that most days I’m just glad to be the one who gets to do this.” He gestures to her, him, them. “Kiss you. Remind you to eat, sleep, take your meds. Stick your feet between my calves in the middle of the night. Holding you through the hallucinations is just one, small part, and most times you even make _that_ easy.”

He wouldn’t lie to her. But she thinks, dimly, of all the times she’s bruised him. All the times she’s sat up in bed, searching blindly for her lightsaber, blade pale against the brown skin of his throat. She can’t imagine _that’s_ easy, though maybe it is—she’s known a few spies in her time, Rhyss included, but they never seem to talk about what they’ve been through, the horrors they call pets.

“I’m just sorry,” he continues, hiding his face against her, “you have to go through all this.” And she believes him. There’s a sorrow to him, a weight to his voice, that isn’t normally there. “I’m sorry these burdens are yours to carry.”

(Rhyss said something similar, once upon a time. _It’ll change you, Callie._

_What will?_

_The Order._

She’d tried to make light of it. _Well, I would hope so. I don’t think they just hand you a ‘saber and send you on your merry way._

Rhyss didn’t laugh. Not that Caldis had expected her to, but still—it would’ve been nice. _I know you’ve thought about it, and I know you think you’re doing the right thing, but—_

 _Rhyss._ A hand on the Mirialan’s arm. _I_ am _doing the right thing._

Finally, the smallest of smiles, there then gone. _I hope you’re right._

 _I’m always right._ )

“Who else is going to carry them?” She says it without thinking. But it’s true, isn’t it? Who else, with the Jedi dwindling in numbers, the Force atrophying with every passing day. Who else? “I may not be a Jedi anymore, but this is what they trained me for. Orgus, Phells. Your mom.” A pause. This is getting dangerously close to Scion territory. “I’m not saying this is my destiny or anything. My shoulders are pretty… narrow, and dainty, so there’s a good chance I wasn’t meant for this at all. But I’m here now, and—”

“Callie.” Barely a reprimand, caught in her hair.

“Right,” she huffs. “Sorry.”

“Just let me have this.” He turns his head. Blinks at her, lashes quivering. “Let me want a better life for you. Okay?”

Something shudders in her, gives way. “Okay.” She lifts a hand, cups his cheek. Presses the pad of her thumb to the corner of his mouth, desperate to see him smile, or—at the very least—pretend. “I love you, Theron.”

He turns his head, nuzzles her palm, exhaling against the skin. “I love you too.”

He means it. Caldis knows he means it. And yet, when his mouth finds hers later that night, it is with the briefest faltering.


End file.
